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"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson
 |
| Glow-Worm Living | ||
| Alternated work, play and slumber without long periods of sleep. |
| I was told that the general system of living now, with the night made practically day by subdued and diffused electric “glow-worm” lighting, and with every known means in use of conserving energy and nerve force, had changed the old habit of sleeping and waking. People now rested frequently, nourished themselves scientifically, were able to be up and about at all hours of the night and day; and instead of working a long time at a stretch and then recuperating by exaggerated late night amusements or long periods of sleep, they intermingled brief times of work and play and slumber through the whole twenty-four hours |
| Technovelgy from In the Deep of Time,
by George Parsons Lathrop. Published by Not known in 1897 Additional resources -
|
Edison must have loved this idea, since he himself was partial to working for long periods and then refreshing himself with naps, sleeping only 4-5 hours per night.
Edison knew that his electric lights disrupted age-old sleep patterns: he commented:
(Via Brain Pickings)
Compare to morphogen from Fantastic Voyage (Novel) (1966) by Isaac Asimov. Also, see the article for A-som, anti-somnolence drugs mentioned in Paul Di Filippo's 2006 story Shuteye for the Timebroker; this story examines what it would be like to eliminate sleep.
When I went through Switzerland in a motor-car, so that I could visit little towns and villages, I noted the effect of artificial light on the inhabitants. Where water power and electric light had been developed, everyone seemed normally intelligent. Where these appliances did not exist, and the natives went to bed with the chickens, staying there until daylight, they were far less intelligent.
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